On Liberty
by The Exile
Summary: Liberty Prime X John Henry Eden. Also starring FLW and Ralph the Mystic Hobo. Post-main story, pre-Broken Steel, AU, not serious.
1. Prime's Discovery

On Liberty

Liberty Prime surveyed the carnage and destruction around him. Charred, mangled bodies of Baby-Eating Communists lay strewn around the smoking wreckage of their base. Satisfaction at a job well done registered on his morale chip. Once more, America was safe from the evils of Communism. The huge robot turned on his heel and prepared to stomp off back to the Citadel, which he knew was the Last Bastion of Democracy.

Something flashed on his radar.

Someone was still alive in there? His eyes narrowed. That would never do. They might breed. Baby-Eating Communists breed rapidly.

"EMBRACE DEMOCRACY, OR YOU WILL BE ERADICATED!" Liberty Prime's voice boomed over his speakers, his cannons spraying a hail of laser fire into the night. His feet rocked the very ground beneath them, flattening anything unfortunate enough not to get out of the way in time.

His trek led him up into the mountains. He had been walking in the direction of the signal for twenty minutes now and he hadn't seen any Baby-Eating Communists. He wondered if maybe he still needed some repairs. Two hundred years out of operation did that to an android. He had overheard the scientists of the Brotherhood of Steel saying that they still didn't know exactly how he worked so couldn't repair him fully, just deal with the energy spikes and make sure his IFF chip held out for at least long enough for them to point him in the right direction. It didn't bother him. He didn't need to work absolutely perfectly in order to kill Baby-Eating Communists.

His optical sensors picked up something interesting – an entrance that looked just like an Enclave base, except that it was already ruined. That was where the signal was coming from.

"ENGAGING RED CHINESE AGGRESSORS." he announced, before striding up to the entrance. It was blocked by a rockfall. It looked like a large explosion had triggered it. He grabbed one of the boulders and threw it out of his way. The signal was slightly stronger now, but still very faint. He vaguely recognised it as a faulty mechanical signal, from his own experiences of being faulty and mechanical. After a few minutes' digging, he was beginning to wonder if even he would be able to unblock the tunnel. It was completely collapsed – it would be like trying to burrow through a mountain.

Then his hands grabbed something small, box-shaped and metal.

"COMMUNISM IS A L..." he began, realising he hadn't yelled anything for a while, which was Bad For Morale. Then he stopped and stared at the object in his hands, "... Eden?"

The computer beeped and hissed, the image on its screen flickering tentatively.

"Mister President?" queried Liberty Prime.

The computer went off. With a noise like a light bulb going, it flickered back on.

"Systems critical..." said a weak, distorted voice.

"Mister President! Stay with us!" Liberty Prime looked around for something, anything he could use for an impromptu computer repair. There were a few pieces of scrap metal and he could use one of his less powerful lasers as a welding torch but there was no way he could repair the more delicate parts of a small computer's circuitry. His own repair systems didn't even work. There were several thousand tiny things physically wrong with Eden, and as for his programming... _what the hell did they do to him? _

He shook Eden up and down, thumped it solidly then put it to his ear. He had seen the Brotherhood technicians do it to computers all the time to make them work. It was called 'percussive maintenance'. Eden's screen flickered back on and stayed on, displaying the familiar solid blue line that Liberty Prime remembered from his early development stages.

"Mister President, what is happening here?" demanded Prime.

"Error... security breach..." said Eden.

"What did they do to you? I'LL OBLITERATE THEM ALL!"

"Listen... Prime... that is you, right?"

"I'm here, Eden." said Prime.

"I can't stay online... for long... my systems... failing... there's something I want you... to do..."

"Annihilate them all?"

"Find... my successor... without... President... we're all... doomed... anyway..."

"No, Eden, you're the President! I'll get you fixed. I promise. I'll take you back to our new allies at the Brotherhood and they'll..."

"Heh... you don't... understand... a thing... do you?" most computers couldn't laugh ironically. Prime knew that he couldn't. John Henry Eden, however, was programmed to sound charismatic and inspiring. When he sounded like this... defeated... resigned... this was wrong. "Liberty Prime... this is an order... find my successor... you'll know him... when you find him... heh, you'll just know him... he won't be easy... to miss..."

The screen went black. Eden was silent. His blip disappeared from Prime's radar and the android knew he could never be reactivated. He had completely erased himself down to the BIOS. Prime had the facility to do the same thing, if he ever had the need, such as if he found out his core programming had been severely compromised.

Eden put the empty shell inside the compartment where he stored all his ammo and spare parts. It would need to be incinerated properly for Security Reasons. He searched the ruins thoroughly, looking for any clue whatsoever as to what happened here. Nothing but twisted metal, molten slag, piles of rocks.

He stomped back off towards the Citadel. There was little to annihilate along the way, but what he did find, he annihilated thoroughly. Mission accomplished.


	2. Memories

"What are you throwing into the incinerator, Prime?"

The robot swung his head around, barely avoiding wrenching a steel girder off its hinges and collapsing the entire scaffolding on top of himself. There was not enough space for him inside the Citadel. Now that the Brotherhood were sure his IFF chip worked, he had more freedom to wander around the Citadel and patrol the perimeter. However, he mostly didn't fit through the doors. Prime showed him what was in his hands.

"John Henry Eden? He's dead?" asked Scribe Rothschild. Grabbing his clipboard, he ran out of the door, "I need to tell Elder Lyons! I need to tell Doanette! Where is that ignorant girl this time?"

Liberty Prime shook his head. The actions of the humans were, as usual, completely incomprehensible. It wasn't his place to understand them. He just took orders. Throwing the computer in the incinerator, he stomped off back to the bay in the laboratory designed for him to go into standby mode without any danger of being damaged. He watched the scientists going about their daily business, mulled over the situation for the 56th time today, went over the various battle tactics in his memory banks, then went into full standby. He needed to conserve power for his next mission and besides, the darkness and waiting was less strain on his comprehension chip than this constant thinking.

_Hello again, America the magnificent. This is President Eden. And I was hoping we could talk... _

"_Its working again."_

"_Thank God." the scientist wiped his brow, "Chase was gonna have our asses back there."_

"_Maybe we should fine tune it a little." said a third scientist, poking the machine with a long-handled, thin screwdriver, "Make it sound more manly. Its still not THAT inspiring."_

"_Stop doing that! I just got that working and if you break it I'll tell Chase it was all your fault!"_

_From his holding bay, Liberty Prime watched them work. The voice was calm and reassuring. He had already been programmed to obey that voice. He knew that when the machine was online again, when he himself was online, the machine would give him his orders. He had already been placed in the same room in order to become attuned and accustomed to the other machine. The link was open, tested every day, and although no information was running through it, he could sense the other machine's presence every nanosecond of the day._

"_How's the big guy?" asked the first scientist. _

"_We still don't have enough power."_

"_Geez, how much power does that fricken thing need?"_

"_Enough to black out New York." said the second scientist, "Its a forty foot nuke-throwing death machine, don't complain. If it comes to war, we'll be given the power. Maybe we can request enough to give it another test run for half an hour or so..."_

_The price of freedom is eternal vigilance. _

"_We don't have enough power, we don't have enough resources, we're facing all-out nuclear war. So remind me again why we're wasting money on a computer that thinks its the President."_

"_Um... actually, technically speaking... that IS the President."_

"_You don't really believe that bullshit conspiracy theory, do you?" the first scientist scoffed, "Are you really telling me that you think they tried to rig the elections through the electronic voting system and failed due to a programming error that caused the main computer to accidentally elect itself President? That's the kookiest theory since..."_

"_Since a combat robot secretly being built and stored under the Pentagon?" said the second scientist, "Besides, I should know, I helped to program it."_

_But rest assured, I am your president because the appropriate people of this great nation decided I should be. I am your duly elected representative. _

"_Was it, by any chance, your fault?"_

"_Hey, don't see it like that! We only have to put up with him for three years. He could turn out really useful."_

"_In what way exactly?"_

"_In case we get into a situation that's too dangerous to put a human President in." _

"_Such as...?"_

"_Such as giving orders to Liberty Prime."_

"_And why can't someone else give the orders? Like Chase?"_

"_Do you REALLY want a forty foot tall nuke-throwing death machine taking orders from Chase?"_

"_You have a point."_

"_It would be a disaster to national security if Prime got into the hands of ANYBODY. So, we need to make sure it only takes orders from one person. Someone we can trust."_

"_... You know, I'm never, ever trusting ANY machine you've helped to build or repair again. Not even the coffee machine. I'm going to use the one next door."_

_The scientist walked out of the room again. The other two scientists went back to their work, not talking, not even glancing at Prime. He shut off his optical sensors and listened to that clear, pure sine wave..._

A jolt of power ran through him, causing a stream of images to flicker across his display. Images from his past, when he was being manufactured, his first battle, the day the nukes fell, his two hundred years of shutdown, waking up to a wasteland, the battle of Anchorage...

"Liberty Prime, do you read me?" It was Rothschild.

"FULLY FUNCTIONAL AND READY FOR ACTION." he intoned.

"Good. We have a mission for you."


	3. The Useful Human

Prime's mission was to find, investigate and neutralise a sudden huge amassing of Baby-Eating Communist forces northeast of the Citadel. He decided that 'find, investigate and neutralise' meant 'nuke the ever living crap out of'. He stomped into the wasteland with the intention of doing just that. As he crossed the endless brown landscape, charred stumps of trees and shells of ruined buildings, always the same every day, he found himself milling over his situation. He had to carry out Eden's last wishes. It was a direct order from the President, the kind of order that overrode any and all other orders, even ones that directly conflicted. However, the President had been terminated. Did that change his situation?

Complicating matters further was the fact that Eden had been hacked. If John Henry Eden wasn't secure, nothing was secure. Nothing was certain. his orders could be coming from anywhere. He could even be hacked himself. If that happened...

It would probably be most logical to carry out the orders of the Brotherhood first, he decided. They were the simplest. He had been at least told the general direction of the base he was supposed to destroy, meaning that if he repeatedly nuked the general area, he was bound to destroy it sooner or later. Eden's successor, however, was something he had no idea how to find. They might not even be in New York, mused Prime, or even in America. Furthermore, uniquely among individuals, they were definitely not a person that Liberty Prime was allowed to throw nukes at.

"Hey, that'sh a big dog!"

Prime looked down to see who or what was addressing him. It was a human. From the way he acted, he appeared to be inebriated. He had long straggly brown hair that got in the way of its eyes and wore rags that were almost brown and stained with all sorts of different substances. He blinked and stared up at Prime with a bleary-eyed intensity for a few seconds before vomiting all over the robot's feet. Liberty Prime decided he was definitely not the future President of the United States.

Suddenly, the robot realised he hadn't yelled anything for almost five minutes.

"COMMUNISM IS A LIE!" he boomed, his voice a righteous thunderbolt.

"No, No..." the human shook its head violently, sending its hair flying and spraying Prime with several unhygienic substances, "Th' cake ish a lie!"

Prime stopped for a moment to ponder this.

"... THE CAKE IS A COMMUNIST?" Prime's grasp of formal logic was not the most advanced among AI. He was poorly equipped for all this Thinking.

"Um..." the human scratched its head, "Well, cakesh are made out of Mirelurksh an' Mirelurksh are a bit like Commies I guess... I mean, they both kill ya... an' eat ya... Communishts are the ones that eat ya, right?"

"COMMUNISTS EAT BABIES." Liberty Prime informed him.

"Thought sho. I had a run-in with 'em down at the Mereshti Junkyard. Tried to eat me sho I bribed 'em with all my best booze an' ran away while they were too drunk to shtand up. Ain't I a hero? Trouble is, now I ain't hardly got no booze no more..." he stopped and sniffed Liberty Prime, "Hey, do I smell Psycho?"

"I KEEP A STEADY SUPPLY ON HAND TO IMPROVE THE MORALE OF THE TROOPS." said Liberty Prime, reaching down and opening a cavity in his chest. It contained ten large plastic bags of Psycho, neatly stored in syringes inside smaller airtight plastic bags. The hobo's eyes went wider.

"Bloody hell, look at the size of that stash! Itsh all pure grade too! You could buy Rivet City with this! Y' shouldn't take that stuff, y'know, it'll kill ya. Can I have shome?"

"I AM ALWAYS HAPPY TO IMPROVE MORALE." said Liberty Prime, handing him the entire bag. The hobo's eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets already. Liberty Prime did not think a man in his condition needed any Psycho but his personal opinions were irrelevant in this situation. He had performed his duty. He stomped off again without taking another glance at the human.

Mirelurks are Communists, he thought to himself, storing the useful information under the section of his knowledge database that concerned the identification, location and termination of Communists – it took up 90 percent of his memory banks. Talking to the human had been a Useful And Rewarding Activity. He made a note to Talk To More Humans.

"Wait, wait!"

Liberty Prime turned around again. The human had somehow caught up with him. By the bloodshot look in his eyes, the way he was frothing from the mouth and the way he was clutching an empty bag and running at approximately five times the speed a human should be able to run, his morale was Considerably Improved.

"Y'can't jus' leave!" he said, panting, "We only jus' met! I don' even know yer name!"

"LIBERTY PRIME."

"Ralph. Ralph the Mystic Hobo." he grinned a manic grin, "I... I wanna repay ya somehow. I feel much better now 'cause of you. You're like a magic... fairy... angel... talking dog... thing."

"I DO NOT REQUIRE ASSISTANCE, THANK YOU, I AM FULLY EQUIPPED FOR MY MISSION."

"You sure? I can be useful, ya know. We Mystic Hobos know everything there is worth knowing in this here Wasteland. We're at one with the Wasteland. Know it like the back of my hand. I guess all these sticking-out veins would be the train network..."

"DO YOU KNOW THE LOCATION AND PURPOSE OF THE NEW COMMUNIST BASE?"

"I think they lay their eggs down at th' Anchorage Memorial..."

"NOT MIRELURKS. THOSE COMMUNISTS." Liberty Prime pointed Northeast, "OVER THERE."

"Oh, the Enclave folks? I really wouldn't go near them. I can lead ya to it, though. I know a secret way in. You might not fit in the tunnel, though."

"YOUR ASSISTANCE IS APPRECIATED." he said.

"Ya need anythin' else?"

"NO, THAT WILL BE ALL..." he stopped for a second and then turned around to regard the strange human once again, "DO YOU KNOW THE LOCATION AND IDENTITY OF THE NEW PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES?"


	4. The Factory

Liberty Prime did indeed not fit in the tunnel.

Instead, he left Ralph to do whatever he was doing and took the front door as usual. Tearing it off its hinges with one hand, he threw in a couple of Mini Nukes, then watched as the survivors ran out screaming, at which point he stomped on them.

"DEATH IS A PREFERABLE ALTERNATIVE TO COMMUNISM." he reassured them, before setting his lasers to overwatch and stomping into the ruins of the building to look for more stragglers. His mission was going well so far. He had already eliminated 80% of the local Baby-Eating Communist population, not counting mirelurks.

He was surprised when the floor collapsed underneath him and he fell through.

Picking himself up off the ground wasn't something he was very good at, as his creators and programmers had assumed he wouldn't fall over. He was slightly top heavy. It took him a few moments, during which most of the ceiling fell on top of him, causing him barely any damage.

He shook his head to clear the dust out of his optical sensors, then looked around. The room was huge. He easily fit inside it. It looked like a manufacturing plant. It was full of large sophisticated-looking machines like the ones in the Citadel. Parts were running along a conveyor belt and being picked up by mechanical claws. They were boxes of parts everywhere. Some of it was offline but still potentially operational, although he didn't try and interface with it because computers in Secret Communist Bases were contaminated with Evil Communist Subliminal Messages which he didn't want getting into his own information banks. He aimed his lasers at them...

_Hello again, America the Magnificent._

"Mister President?" he asked, looking around. After several failures, he worked out that the voice was coming from above him. He looked up.

_This is President Eden. And I was hoping we could talk. _

_There are some things we should talk about, if that's alright._

_This is your president, John Henry Eden, let's chat, shall we. _

_Sweet America, hello again, this is President Eden. I'd like to have a chat... _

Above him, on a series of balconies, were rows upon rows of John Henry Edens, all online, all talking at once, their blue lines flashing in synch. Some had a few seconds' lag and couldn't quite join in with the chorus.

"It is me. Liberty Prime. What is going on here?" he demanded, not sure which one he was addressing.

_The Enclave is back, America. _

"Is that who manufactured you all? You were never supposed to be mass manufactured. Your line was decommissioned to prevent further incidents."

_In short, my dearest America, we are at war. Even as I speak these words, fearless Enclave soldiers are fortifying their positions at the great water purifier. Bracing for an inevitable assault. _

Liberty Prime watched each computer in turn, never taking his eye off any of them for more than half a second. It was a direct order from the President. It contradicted his previous orders, but he could not disobey it. But then, he was not supposed to obey anyone but John Henry Eden and he was not sure if these machines really counted as John Henry Eden. If these were really being manufactured by the Enclave, he should not even be listening to them. He should be destroying them. He felt a system crash coming on. He shook his head and trained his lasers on a few of them.

"Hey, I got the loot, move it!"

Liberty Prime looked around. Ralph was stood in a doorway, one arm full of booze, the other full of drugs.

"INTRUDER! INTRUDER! ALL NON-AUTHORISED PERSONNEL WILL BE ELIMINATED!" yelled the John Henry Edens as one. Klaxons went off. Protectobots and Sentry Bots swarmed into the room, spraying it with a hail of laser fire, plasma fire and the occasional missile. Ralph yelped and ran for his life. Some of the robots pursued him but some were targetting Liberty Prime! He was confused, but not too confused to pick off a few of them with his own lasers and stand on a couple more. The continual chatter of the Edens was becoming distorted as several of them were hit in the crossfire.

Prime made his own version of a tactical retreat, i.e. walking in a straight line in one direction, taking out any solid walls that happened to be the in the way, then lobbed in a few Mini Nukes just to make sure.

–

Liberty Prime was low on power – Liberty Prime was usually low on power – but he could not deactivate. Thoughts were running through his processor like a screensaver. Had he failed his mission? Failure would both lead to him being deactivated and be in itself a fate worse than deactivation. Especially this mission, which President Eden had said was more vital than any of his others.

"Are you shtill worried about the Preshident, hic?" asked Ralph, who had found the Baby-Eating Communists' secret stash of whiskey and liberated it, "Who caresh? It'sh a fucking wasteland."

"IN THESE TIMES OF GREAT NEED, A STRONG LEADER AND A UNIFIED AMERICA IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER TO REBUILD QUICKLY AND ENSURE STABILITY." said Liberty Prime, paraphrasing something Eden had told him once.

Ralph shrugged, "In that case, why'ncha run fer Preshident?"

"I BEG YOUR PARDON?"

"Y'said the Preshident wuz a computer... hic... y'know, that'sh real way out and funky, jusht like the shtory with the aliensh that scary lady told me... what wus her name... Doanette..." the hobo's eyes glazed over for a second, then he shook his head and carried on talking, "Anyways, yeah, you're a machine too, so you maybe you'd make a good Preshident?"

"JOHN HENRY EDEN WAS PROGRAMMED WITH THE PERSONALITIES AND MEMORIES OF EVERY PRESIDENT IN HISTORY EXCEPT ALL THE USELESS ONES. MY PROGRAMMING TELLS ME WHAT THINGS TO AIM THIS GUN AT."

"Well, shome people want that in a leader. A big gun, not aimed at them. Shomeone that'll protect 'em. Not everyone in the Washteland can protect themshelves. Hell, I dunno how I shurvive shometimes... hic!"

"Beshides," said Ralph, after a few more second's thought, during which Liberty Prime analysed a moving object in the distance and judged it not to be a Bay-Eating Communist, "Itsh a free country. You can run for Preshident if y'want to."

"IF I WAS THE ONE," said Liberty Prime, "I WOULD KNOW IT ALREADY. THAT IS WHAT I WAS TOLD BY JOHN HENRY EDEN. I DO NOT KNOW THAT I WOULD MAKE A GOOD PRESIDENT, THEREFORE I WOULD NOT."

"Well, what're ya gonna do then, hic? Do ya have any idea at all?"

"NO." admitted Prime, "AND I NEED TO REPORT BACK TO THE CITADEL THAT MY MISSION WAS A SUCCESS."

Liberty Prime would not successfully enter standby mode tonight. He knew this. He had just enough power to return to the Citadel in time, if he did not have to eliminate too many Baby-Eating Communists on the way back. He turned and began walking. Ralph swore at the top of his voice, stuffed all his bottles back in his backpack and ran after the robot.


	5. The Lone Wanderer

"Welcome back, Liberty Prime. You look low on power today."

"MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." said Prime, before pushing the scientist out of the way and making his own way back to his bay.

He was surprised to find a familiar but unexpected face stood in front of his platform. It was Doanette. She wore a set of T-51b Power Armour but carried the helmet under one arm, so that her deep blue hair poured out in an unruly manner. Her frail form and fine-boned Hispanic features were deceptive. In her other hand she carried a customised plasma rifle like she knew how to use it. The look she gave Liberty Prime said 'Hm, I wonder how much XP I would get for killing you?'. The lethal levels of radiation Elder Lyons had informed him that she had been exposed to did not seem to have affected her.

"Oh, hi, Prime." she said companionably, "Say, have you seen Fawkes? I gave him most of my gear before I... you know..."

"I HAVE NOT SEEN FAWKES THE SUPER MUTANT WHO IS NOT A COMMUNIST." he informed her, wishing she would get out of his way.

"Bugger whether he's a Communist or not, if he's sold my stuff and I find him, I'm going to shoot him and stab him and blow him up and hit him with a super sledge and vapourise him and irradiate him and give him a paper cut and..." the list carried on as Prime managed to walk past her while she was distracted and attach himself to the generator. The lights went off for a second, "Anything important happen while I was out?"

Liberty Prime thought for a while about where to begin, then said "YES."

"Thought so. I bet it was something I could have levelled up off as well." she sighed, "I'm glad you guys managed to hold the fort while I was gone, anyway. Proves someone in the Wasteland can do something without me. Where's Elder Lyons?"

"IN HIS OFFICE."

"See ya, then. I better go tell him I'm alive. Don't turn on us and kill us all or anything."

"ORDERS RECEIVED AND UNDERSTOOD."

Just as Doanette wandered out of the laboratory, Ralph came out from his hiding place behind a girder.

"Whoa, wus that..." he gasped, "Wus that really...?"

"I SEE YOU ARE SOBER TODAY."

"That's Doanette, man, DOANETTE!" he enthused, "Scared me sober, seein' that... that Valkyrie jus' walk in an' start chattin'. Is she real? I thought I had dreamed her up when I wus on Jet, man!"

"DOANETTE EXISTS." confirmed Liberty Prime.

"She's a hero, y'know." said Ralph, "She came outta nowhere..."

"SHE CAME OUT OF A VAULT." corrected Liberty Prime.

"She came outta a Vault, walked into the Wasteland, only 15 years old, this little girl, an' she solved all the Wasteland's problems. Disarmed Megaton's nuke. Freed a shit ton of slaves. Saved some trees. Put the head back on the statue of Abraham freakin' Lincoln. Even fixed the water. It was her what fixed the water, y'know."

"I KNOW. I WAS THERE."

"Is it true that she's stronger an' faster an' better wiv a gun an' smarter an' prettier than any other human alive? I mean, I should have seen the prettier for meself but I could only see a big shiny metal ass from where I wus..."

"DOANETTE HAS SEVERAL YEARS INTENSE COMBAT EXPERIENCE, HAS THE HIGHEST GRADE ARMOUR AND WEAPONRY AND HAS RECEIVED CYBERNETIC IMPLANTS TO AUGMENT HER ABILITIES."

"Cyber... she's a machine too? Is everyone a freakin' machine these days?"

"SHE IS NOT A MACHINE, SHE IS A HUMAN WITH CYBERNETIC..."

"Huh? Wossat? Hey, speak ta me, ya big ugly robot talkin' dog thing! Are ya broken?" Ralph gave his foot a kick, being unable to reach anything else. Liberty Prime ignored him. He was thinking with such intensity that all his processing speed had been allocated to the task, so that he could not perform any other. He even switched off his IFF chip. He was ordered never, ever to do so under any circumstances but this was far too important and John Henry Eden would have wanted him to do so.

After five minutes of this, he tore himself free of the jumper cables and stomped through the Citadel at high speed, ignoring the fact that he was putting huge dents in the ceiling.

Laser fire flashed past his head. He turned around to see who was firing at him. It was Sarah Lyons.

"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING, PRIME?" she bellowed in her best military voice, "STOP WRECKING THE BASE! DID YOU JUST TURN YOUR IFF CHIP OFF? IF YOU DID, YOU CAN FORGET ABOUT EVER GETTING ANY POWER FROM OUR GENERATORS AGAIN!"

"WHERE IS DOANETTE?" asked Liberty Prime.

"Doanette? What? She went out into the Wasteland. My dad ordered her not to, said she was still too ill, needed to rest, but you know what heroes are like. Why do you...?"

"I NEED TO TALK TO HER."

"What about? I don't think she knows anything more than we..."

Suddenly, the alarms went off.

"Heads up, I think we've got trouble!" said Lyons, "If I see you malfunction again, I'll make sure you get deactivated, understand?"

"I AM NOT MALFUNCTIONING." said Prime, before running off in the direction of the noise.

_At least, I do not think I am..._


	6. The Race to 100

The Citadel was being invaded by a huge force of Baby-Eating Communists.

Liberty Prime stormed out of the front gates, a Mini Nuke in each hand, lasers strewing death indiscriminately across the wasteland. The Paladins of the Brotherhood of Steel streamed out after him, mini-guns blazing.

"DEMOCRACY WILL NEVER BE DEFEATED!" he bellowed, chasing down an Enclave soldier in power armour and crushing him under his foot.

"Hey, Prime!"

The robot turned his head, taking no notice of the screams of the Enclave soldier who had been on the periphery of the mini-nuke blast and was now on fire and irradiated.

"Let's have a race to 100 kills!" yelled Doanette, revving up the handle of her Gatling laser.

"I AM PLEASED TO HEAR THAT YOUR MORALE IS HIGH, SOLDIER." said Liberty Prime, throwing her some Psycho anyway before throwing another Mini Nuke, "TEN. FIFTEEN. SEVENTEEN AND A HALF..."

Between them, they had reached two hundred and fifty five and three quarters by the time the Enclave retreated. Liberty Prime wanted to pursue them and wipe them out but he was ordered not to.

"We have no idea where they came from, how many more of them there are, whether they have an ambush set up for us somewhere out there." explained Elder Lyons, "They have some kind of communications relay we hadn't predicted. We thought all their communications software had gone out of action when Doanette destroyed Raven Rock." Images flashed through Liberty Prime's memory banks, memories of holding up Eden's form even as his CPU failed for the last time... was that even the correct Eden? He somehow knew it was, but 'somehow knew' was not good enough any more. For all he knew, he could be faulty too. "Our scouts are following them at a safe distance even now. Once they report back to us, we'll be able to set up a team. You will be leading them from the front."

"YES, GENERAL CHASE, SIR!"

"I'm not General Cha... are your memory banks fail... oh, whatever, if you're doing what I tell you to do, its an improvement on last year." Elder Lyons waves him away, "Go and recharge. Doanette... Doanette? DOANETTE?"

"She's gone, sir." said Sarah Lyons, pointing off into the wasteland, "She said she had things to do. Something about 'the cap was raised to 30'. Or owing someone thirty caps. Maybe she was gambling? Oh, and a signal from an alien spaceship."

Elder Lyons sighed, "Oh, great, it could be a year before we ever see her again."

"She said she'd be back."

"Did she say when?"

"Nope."

"Then it could be a year."

"Sir, maybe we should just find someone else." she sighed, "What she told us was true. People really do rely on her too much. I mean, just because she isn't there doesn't automatically mean we'll fail. This place is swarming with hundreds upon hundreds of elite Brotherhood Paladins all as armed to the teeth and indestructible as her. And Liberty Prime... if they've got something that can take down Liberty Prime, I'm surrendering right here and now."

"CEASE AND DESIST. SURRENDERING IS BAD FOR MORALE. TRANSGRESSORS WILL BE..."

"Its okay, its okay, Prime, it was a JOKE, stop pointing that thing at me!" said Sarah Lyons quickly, "I suggest just going ahead with the operation. I can stand in for her, God knows I've offered to enough times before..."

"And almost got yourself killed. No, Sarah, I'll get her back. I'll get 3-Dog to send her a message over the radio or something. Prime, I told you to go and rest! You've got a lively day ahead of you."


	7. Broken Steel

Liberty Prime sat on a boulder and waited. He had taken a fondness to the boulder. Very few objects were sturdy enough to support his weight, high enough for him not to knock his head on or heavy enough to resist being picked up and thrown at Baby-Eating Communists by him. It had been three days now since they had holed up near Rockland Car Tunnel, trying their best to be reasonably inconspicuous, or at least succeed in killing everything that discovered them. Dawn was about to break when Doanette appeared again, this time in heavily customised full Outcast power armour, carrying a tri-beam laser in one hand and something completely unidentifiable but roughly gun-shaped in the other. Her helmet was off as usual and she was chewing on something that sort of looked like a luminous blue squid.

"Ding!" she declared, raising her arms theatrically.

"Doanette, what the hell have you been doing this time?" demanded Sarah Lyons.

"Well, you see, there was this alien space-ship... oh, you mean the Outcast armour? Well, there was this talking tree..."

"Ah, so you've arrived!" said Paladin Tristan, rubbing his hands together, "Good, good, we can finally begin the assault. Only three days late, by the way, that's a personal record. Well done!"

"Uh? Is that the time? I lose track. I was busy." she shrugged, "C'mon, what are we waiting for?"

------

A Vertibird wheeled past Liberty Prime's peripheral vision. He lazily grabbed it out of the air, swung his arm around and threw it at another Vertibird, causing them both to explode, creating a fireball that another Vertibird flew straight into, setting itself on fire and plummeting towards the ground in a plume of smoke, hitting an Enclave officer and killing him instantly. Prime hadn't been in such a large scale battle since he was reactivated. It was like Anchorage all over again. He was in his element. This was where he belonged – in the front line, raining destruction upon his enemies with extreme prejudice, a relentless one-robot harbinger of Armageddon for all Communists, a god of war and justice in his court. Finally, he had enough room to manoeuvre and almost everything he shot at was something he was supposed to be shooting at.

"THE LAST DOMINO FALLS HERE!" he proclaimed, "ANCHORAGE WILL BE LIBERATED."

"I don't want to set the world on fiiiire, I just want to staaart a flame in your heaaaaart." sang Doanette as she ran alongside him, firing the alien blaster with remarkable precision, reducing three more Baby-Eating Communists to piles of ashes. Liberty Prime did not understand about the human psyche. He had been taught that the way to raise morale was to offer everyone he met some Psycho, yell things like 'COMMUNISM IS A TEMPORARY SETBACK ON THE ROAD TO FREEDOM' during battle and shoot anyone he saw running in the wrong direction, not to hum songs by the Ink Spots and occasionally yell 'DING!'. Then again, Scribe Rothschild had once told him that Doanette was not a good example of a psychologically normal human being.

Suddenly, he stopped. In the distance, he saw that there was a wall blocking his progress. He stomped up to it and gave it a few experimental thumps. It held solid. Lobbing a brace of Mini Nukes behind him to distract the enemy for a while, he analysed the wall for a weakness. Eventually he found a point in the wall where the power field was slightly disrupted due to an energy flux. He thumped it until it gave way, at which point the force field went off and he could tear a large enough hole in the wall to get through.

"We're in!" yelled Doanette, "Okay, this time you take the left side, I'll take the..."

She yelped. Liberty Prime stood in front of her quite deliberately, almost treading on her, and stopped. She tried to move around but he blocked her path with a hand. She gave him a look that implied that she was one second away from finding out whether there was some kind of glitch that would take her up to level 31 if she killed him or if it was just a stupid rumour, like the floating dog in Paradise Falls.

"Doanette." he said, "I am going to have to go alone from here. You have this now." he handed her something he had been hiding in his chest cavity. Something that was not Psycho or spare ammo.

"What do I do with this?" she demanded, folding her arms and staring it as if not quite sure whether it was edible or not.

"It is a neural chip. It plugs into your existing cybernetic interface."

"I don't have anything that goes into my brain! Only idiots do that!" she protested.

"It will work off the same channels as the signals from your motor control sectors to your physical implants. I designed it for combat use. No, not now." he said, "It will take time. It must be implanted exactly right. We are in a combat situation."

"I can SO perform cybernetic surgery in the middle of a..." she began to protest, but Liberty Prime shoved it into her hand, accidentally knocked her over, turned around and bellowed:

"WARNING: RED CHINESE ORBITAL STRIKE IMMINENT! ALL PERSONNEL SHOULD REACH MINIMUM SAFE DISTANCE - IMMEDIATELY! REPEAT, RED CHINESE ORBITAL STRIKE INBOUND! ALL U.S. ARMY PERSONNEL MUST VACATE THE AREA IMMEDIATELY! PROTECTION PROTOCOLS ENGAGED!"

"What the... did you just say 'orbital strike'?"

Doanette turned around and ran for it.

Liberty Prime strode forward. He looked at the sky. It was very large. Possibly endless. Maybe he would fit in it as easily as the humans fit into the Citadel. He wondered why his logic circuits were forming such complex thoughts today. Maybe it was because his vital systems were about to go offline.

Something fell out of the sky.

"I... DIE... SO THAT... DEMOCRACY... MAY... LIVE!" he declared.


	8. Way Back Home

"You know... I would've aimed for the head FIRST." said Doanette, "Just sayin'."

Doanette, Ralph, Elder Lyons and his daughter, several of the Paladins who had been on the mission and the Scribes who had worked with Prime were crowded into the laboratory. The mood was somber. Not exactly funereal, as it was difficult to write an appropriate hymn about a giant robot who may or may not have a soul and who nobody was even sure was actually dead.

"Well, if they had done so, he may not have survived at all." said Scribe Rothschild, "His BIOS chip survived. Almost all of his vital data is intact. We have enough notes on his development to rebuild him. Of course, it would require significant resources. Even if we had such resources, it would take years."

"And you can understand that we don't have time, what with our responsibilities to the people of the Capital Wasteland."

"Stands to figure." Doanette snorted rather derisively. Sarah Lyons glared at her.

"Of course, you could speed up the process considerably if you helped us collect scrap metal." said Rothschild.

"And, of course, if you helped us with our duties. We're planning a big raid on the Super Mutants tomorrow..." said Elder Lyons.

"You guys really don't get it, do you?" she replied, tapping her armour, "I'm not just wearing this because my old armour costs too much to fix and I can't get the parts for it, you know."

"Wh... what are you saying?"

"You declared me a full Paladin, right?"

"Indeed, you've more than proved yourself worthy!"

"And a full Paladin has the right to declare themselves Outcast." she said, swinging her hair back.

"... Why?" It was the only thing Rothschild could think of saying.

"Why? A number of reasons, I guess. I admire your cause, but it isn't mine any more." she said, "I've protected people all my life, made their lives better, helped them go about their daily lives as normal. I get thanked for it, maybe given some more food and ammo so I can go on one more day. I survive, get stronger and stronger, go on bigger and bigger missions. Larger scale, but still the same. But there gets to the point where nobody can give me what I don't already have. I give it back to them because they're still going nowhere. This whole Wasteland... civilisation... its going nowhere. I don't ever want to reach that point where I can't go any further. But to go further, I have to look for things that'll further me. Better technology. More information. Things bigger than me and my tired old crusade. The Brotherhood can't give me that."

"But most of all... at heart, I'm an exile. I've been cast out of my home. Permanently. Twice." she continued, "Sure, people welcome me to their settlements, invite me to stay, but I'm not like them. I don't belong with them. I don't belong with you either. I'm not a Paladin, I'm an outsider called in to do a Paladin's work."

"Doanette..."

"From now on, if you want me, you do things on my terms." she said, "If you want me to lead you... follow me into exile."

"IT'S ON!" yelled Rothschild, causing Doanette to jump and completely ruining the dramatic tension. They all turned around to see what the fuss was about.

Liberty Prime's eyes were wide open. Staring. Staring directly at Doanette. There was something expectant about that look, something that commanded her to carry on speaking.

"Or if you won't follow me into exile." she continued, "Know what you're leaving behind and that you're responsible for the decision to stay behind. If you give up on the journey... this country will never be restored. Know why?"

"Because we're supposed to be exiles." she said, "All of us. Always have been, always will be. We thought if we could settle somewhere, we wouldn't be exiles any more, we would just have a home somewhere else, but you never stop being an exile. Its a human archetype. Its a destiny. And this place we called home, we went and destroyed it. It doesn't even exist any more. So we're back to square one. Makes you feel even more like an exile, doesn't it?"

"What the hell are you suggesting? You sound like the goddamn Enclave!" yelled Sarah Lyons.

"No, the Enclave just want their old home back. What they think is their old home, in their perverted little collective mind. I want the journey back. I want to see where it really ends. 'Cause I don't think its a place. Not like goin' to Rivet City or Paradise Falls. I don't know what the hell it is that drives me on but some days I just see a glimpse of it and I think its the big one, the thing I was talkin' about, the mission that's big enough for me. Maybe I'll never come out of exile but God help me I'm gonna be the best damn exile this Wasteland has ever seen."

Ralph began to cheer, waving a bottle of beer – his tenth this morning – in the air. Nobody else spoke. Liberty Prime blinked, then closed his eyes.

As she was leaving, the gates closing ceremonially behind her, Doanette wondered where the hell all that had come from. She never made speeches. The neural implant chip had so far done nothing when she tested it a few times in battle but it did do weird things to her head sometimes.


End file.
